Neither Denise Scott nor Judith Lucy is a great stylist, but both know how to spin a yarn, which should come as no surprise. To generate their own stand-up material during careers that have spanned more than 20 years apiece says as much about these women as writers as it does about them as performers. When comedians create their shows, they are not merely stringing out gags. Every new show demands a new theme and a story on which to hang those one-liners.

This constant hunt for material explains why they cheerfully cannibalise their own lives. Precious little of their lives, it would appear, is off limits and these two memoirs are no exception. As my mother would have said, have they no shame?

Denise Scott's first book, All That Happened at 26, focused on her tumultuous life as a wife, mum and comedian, and includes the tricky parts, such as when she and her partner had flings.

Finds humour in the demans of daily life ... Denise Scott.

She starts off The Tour with a lurid description of her midlife crisis and how she resolved it. From there, we go back to her early beginnings: mum was withdrawn, dad gregarious. She also had the advantage of a strict Catholic upbringing - a godsend for any writer.

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After school, Scott studied drama and taught at Wycheproof, 300 kilometres north-west of anywhere, where she had lots of jolly good adventures, including being chased by a randy school inspector. She threw herself into comedy after a near-miss car accident when she decided she didn't want to die a ''f---ing teacher''.

I spent most of the first part of the book in paroxysms of laughter. It is only later, when she drags out the family skeletons and gives them a good rattle, that the humour tends to trail off.

Drink Smoke Pass Out by Judith Lucy.

After picking up Lucy's Drink Smoke Pass Out, the similarities between the lives of the two women, who are also close friends, become increasingly apparent. While Scott grew up in suburban Melbourne, Lucy came from suburban Perth. And, like Scott, she too went to a Catholic school. As far as parenting goes, however, Lucy has the upper hand. Fans will be aware that Lucy didn't find out she was adopted until she had well and truly flown the nest. What a break that was for a comedian. Lucy not only got several routines out of the trauma, she also wrote her first book, The Lucy Family Alphabet.

Drink Smoke Pass Out concentrates on Lucy's career and her generally fraught personal life, culminating in her discovery of yoga and meditation, and her highly successful television series, Judith Lucy's Spiritual Journey.

Lucy drank herself silly throughout her 20s and 30s, waiting until her 40s to have a damascene moment. They do say in showbiz timing is everything.

Denise Scott's The Tour.

By her own account, the drinking was full-on. When she worked in morning radio in Sydney, Lucy would start drinking at 9am on Fridays after the weekly program finished and keep it up until Sunday evening. Weeknights were different: she stuck to one bottle of wine and four joints.

It is a grim odyssey that leaves you feeling she's lucky to have a liver that's still talking to her.

Apart from family and personal crises, both women talk about the merry-go-round of their careers. They refer to the terror of the early days and how gigs often didn't come off; inherently risk-takers, they persevered until they are now highly regarded in their field.

I would, however, have liked some more about the nuts and bolts of their craft.

While the similarities in the authors' lives are striking, the tone of the books is quite different.

Lucy is great at the one-liners and her written voice is similar to the one she employs on stage. But the subtext of the book is about her efforts to move on from a self-destructive lifestyle to something saner. For a funny woman, Lucy is really quite serious.

Scott's book is far less driven and more concerned with the daily hurly-burly of life.

Yes, she offers up her midlife crisis and her mum's death as material, but The Tour is primarily characterised by its levity and sheer good fun.